Scripture Reading(s)
Philippians 2:5-11
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Reflections
Jesus came to this earth as a man in order for us to be able to relate to Him and as a form humility. If He had come as God in all His power and Glory, then suffering on the cross would not have been a very realistic picture. God wanted for us to be able to witness the most sacrificial act known to mankind so that we could see just how true and how far God is willing to go in order to save us.
It is interesting to note that this passage does not take away the fact that Jesus was still God. It is saying that Jesus took on the form of man and allowed for Himself to experience what we go through every single day. Temptation, sadness, joy, hunger and pain were a real part of Jesus’s life throughout the course of His ministry and was even more prevalent when He took our place on the cross. His human form was not in anyway a limit to His power and who He was. Jesus Christ chose to experience immense pain for our sake.
His work on the cross, done in the form of a man was a display of His love for us, so that the entire world can see that He is the true Savior of this world and turn and worship Him. Jesus Christ held the standard for how we ought to live as humans on this earth. He displayed true love, forgiveness, sympathy, and grace to those who are around Him. He showed us how to respond in the face conflict, persecution and hatred from the world.
Let us always remember the ultimate sacrificial role that Jesus took to prove His love for us. He is a God of love and grace and in Him we can find our true identity. There is no one else in this world that is like Him and we can be thankful and praise Him for the fact that He is the same as He was yesterday, will be tomorrow and forevermore.
Apostle Paul tended to go down many rabbit trails when he spoke and wrote letters. It is often hard to remember what topic he even started with. If you read his original Greek texts you will also see that he is the king of conjunctions and using participles to continue one thought into another. I only bring this up because our passage from the lectionary for today actually has two topics in it. The broader topic of the passage was about imitating Christ in our actions and relationships. We see this in verse 5. The remainder of the passage is actually a rabbit train off of the main topic for the chapter. Yet, the two topics go hand in hand. If we are to imitate Christ, how then did Christ live?
Christ lived in humility. He gave up his honor and divine status to come and dwell with sinful men and women on the earth. He forgave those who harmed him and he lived a life of sacrificial love. If we are too be called followers of Christ, we too must walk in humility. We must forgive others. We must serve others. We must treat all people as we would like to be treated and not like they or we deserve. This is the mind of Christ. It is not like the mind of men.
[Featured image from http://www.northpbc.org]